Table Of ContentAN EARLY
COMMUNIST
MUZAFFAR AHMAD
IN CALCUTTA 1913–1929
SSUUCCHHEETTAANNAA CCHHAATTTTOOPPAADDHHYYAAYY
From an occasionally employed, lower middle-
class Bengali Muslim intellectual on the borderline
of starvation in the city, he was to become
‘the chief accused’ at the Meerut communist trials
started by the colonial government in 1929.
What was the road travelled before challenging
imperialism ‘from the dock’? In 1913, Muzaffar
Ahmad (1889–1973) was just one more individual
adrift in the sea of migrants arriving from rural
Bengal to Calcutta. His ambition was to be
a writer. Yet in the vortex of metropolitan
upheavals, his life would take a completely
different turn. Taking Muzaffar Ahmad’s early
career (1913–29) as its chronological frame,
this book examines the dialectical interplay
between social being and a wider social
consciousness in late colonial Bengal which drew
a section of Muslim intellectuals to communism.
Muzaffar’s life converged with a significant phase
in the social and political history of India and
the world: 1913 marked the eve of the First World
War, while the Wall Street stockmarket crash set
off the Great Depression in 1929. During this
period, especially after the success of the Bolshevik
Revolution in 1917, socialist ideas and communist
activism became politically familiar in different
parts of the globe. In the post-First World War
climate, many alienated urban intellectuals from
Cairo to Shanghai stood at the crossroads
of established identities and radical currents.
Informed by working-class protests from below
and a leftward turn in the literary/cultural fields,
many in India were also moving away from
the political routes open to those from their social
background to combat colonialism and identifying
with alternative visions of decolonization.
(continued on the back flap)
ISBN: 978-81-89487-77-5 Rs 600
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i
An Early Communist
MUZAFFAR AHMAD
IN CALCUTTA 1913–1929
ii
iii
An Early Communist
MUZAFFAR AHMAD
IN CALCUTTA 1913–1929
SUCHETANA CHATTOPADHYAY
Tulika Books
iv
Published by Tulika Books
35 A/1 Shahpur Jat, New Delhi 110 049, India
First published in India in 2011
© Suchetana Chattopadhyay
ISBN: 978-81-89487-77-5
Typeset in Sabon at Tulika Print Communication Services, New Delhi;
printed at Chaman Offset, Delhi 110 002
v
Contents
List of Illustrations vi
Acknowledgements ix
Note on Spelling, Translation and Sources xii
List of Abbreviations xiii
Introduction 1
CHAPTER ONE Migration 7
CHAPTER TWO Towards the Left 50
CHAPTER THREE ‘Talking Bolshevism’ 94
CHAPTER FOUR Organization 141
CHAPTER FIVE Constraints 194
Class, Language, City 239
Bibliography 279
Index 290
vi
Illustrations
Muzaffar Ahmad: in the 1930s, 1940s, 1950s, 1960s
Photos courtesy National Book Agency and Ganashakti Printers xiv
College Square
Photo by Suchetana Chattopadhyay 26
Coffee House on College Street
Photo by Suchetana Chattopadhyay 26
People’s Corner, one among several bookshops in the College
Street area
Photo by Suchetana Chattopadhyay 27
A building in the Khidirpur (Kidderpore) area of Calcutta
Photo by Suchetana Chattopadhyay 40
City of workers
Photo by Kawshik Ananda Kirtania 51
32 College Street: the office of the Bangiya Musalman Sahitya
Samiti was located on the first floor of this house
Photo by Suchetana Chattopadhyay 66
View from the balcony of the Bangiya Musalman Sahitya Samiti
office at 32 College Street
Photo by Suchetana Chattopadhyay 67
7 Moulavi Lane: the residence of Kutubuddin Ahmad
Photo courtesy Ganashakti Printers; from Pradoshkumar Bagchi, ed.,
Communist Andolaner Oitihyamoy Thikana / Historic Addresses of
the Communist Movement, 2008 75
Title page of The People’s Marx: a book Muzaffar Ahmad read
in late 1921, soon after it was published
Photo by Suchetana Chattopadhyay; from the Senate House Library, London 77
ILLUSTRATIONS vii
Abdul Halim
From Arun Chowdhury and Ashok Bandopadhyay, eds., Jibaner Sangrame
Comrade Abdul Halim / Comrade Abdul Halim’s Life Struggle, 2002 102
The Masses of India, a successor of Vanguard: this was published
by M.N. Roy from Paris and secretly despatched to India
Courtesy Archives of the Paris Police Prefecture, France 113
The house at 10/1 Bright Street where Muzaffar Ahmad lived in
early 1922; in a letter to the Comintern in March 1922, he gave
this as the address of the ‘Bharatiya Samyatantra Samiti’ office
Photo courtesy Ganashakti Printers; from Pradoshkumar Bagchi, ed.,
Communist Andolaner Oitihyamoy Thikana / Historic Addresses of the
Communist Movement, 2008 130
37 Harrison Road: the Peasants and Workers Party started
functioning from here in 1926
Photo by Kawshik Ananda Kirtania 154
Front page of an issue of Ganabani, ‘weekly organ in Bengali
of the Peasants’ and Workers’ Party of Bengal’
Courtesy Muzaffar Ahmad Pathagar, Kolkata 159
An article by Muzaffar Ahmad in Ganabani
Courtesy Muzaffar Ahmad Pathagar, Kolkata 160
Advertisement for The Book Company in Ganabani
Courtesy Muzaffar Ahmad Pathagar, Kolkata 161
2/1 European Asylum Lane, now Abdul Halim Lane: the office
of the Peasants and Workers Party moved to the first floor of
this building in 1927
Photo by Suchetana Chattopadhyay 214
A closer view of the PWP office building at 2/1 European
Asylum Lane
Photo by Suchetana Chattopadhyay 215
The Meerut prisoners
Courtesy The Working Class Movement Library, Manchester, UK 225
‘Dhaka House’, 41 Zakaria Street: the office of the ‘Calcutta
Committee’ of the CPI was located here in the early 1930s
From Arun Chowdhury and Ashok Bandopadhyay, eds., Jibaner Sangrame
Comrade Abdul Halim / Comrade Abdul Halim’s Life Struggle, 2002 227
Muzaffar Ahmad after his release from prison in 1951
Photo courtesy Ganashakti Printers; from Muzaffar Ahmad Janmoshato-
barsho Sankhya / Muzaffar Ahmad Birth Centenary Edition, 1989 243
